Red and yellow leaves float down through the air like rubies and gold coins drifting underwater, a pirate’s treasure trove carpeting our front lawn in lustrous Autumn splendor.

I’m sitting on the window seat in my parents’ room, looking out through the misty glass panes. I clutch Funnybunny, my favorite stuffed toy, against my chest, and I begin to sing the song we learned in kindergarten yesterday.

The blackbirds in the tree outside gather on a branch near the window, bobbing up and down, trilling in time with my rolling melody.

My song finishes, and the birds take flight, cawing their goodbyes on the breeze.

There’s a delicious fragrance in the air – a quince and pear pie baking in the oven downstairs, gran’s idea of a healthy lunch. As she says, it’s mostly fruit, after all.

But I’m not hungry yet. There’s something I must do.

I pull myself up onto the stool in front of my mother’s vanity, and reach for her jewelry box. As I’ve done countless times before, I click open the latch, pulling out the tray, emptying out necklaces and bracelets. I tug on the transparent thread at the bottom of the box, lifting up the trick panel.

My treasure is there like always. I scoop it up, savoring the cold kiss of the icy metal.

I hold the ring up to my right eye, closing the other. I look around the room, now gone, replaced with a vast silver-shored beach, churning ocean waves. I turn to face directly in front of me, where the vanity and the mirror were. I see a girl a few years older than me, on the cusp of womanhood. Despite the gap in years, we look alike, except her tumbling hair is white as sea foam; the irises of her eyes are like swirling molten silver. She’s wearing a fine gossamer gown, pale spider silk sprinkled with pearls.

Like me, she’s peering out through a silver ring, smiling, waving as I wave – an almost perfect reflection, except for the slight differences in our appearance.

I hear gran calling from downstairs, saying the pie is almost ready. I call back, telling her I’ll be down in a minute.

Carefully and quickly, I place the ring back in its hiding place, replacing the wooden panel and the jewelry.

I’d give anything to look like my secret friend on the other side of the mirror. I want to be grown up, and wear a pretty dress, and meet a prince.

I get an idea.

I pull out the top draw on mom’s vanity. Sifting through makeup, I select a pearly, shimmery silver eye shadow. I’ve seen mom use a brush to put this on, but I can’t see it now, so I use my fingers instead, smearing the powder all over my eyelids, my lips, my cheeks.

Then I wrap my fingers around the bottle of talcum powder at the bottom of the drawer. I empty the whole thing out onto my head, sneezing as a cloud of frosty talc blossoms in the air around me. I rub it in, turning my pale blonde hair into a patchy white disaster.

I take out mom’s favorite pearl necklace from the jewelry box. I wrap it around my head, just above my brow line, tying it at the back to make it hold. For the finishing touch, I choose a teardrop diamond earring, hanging it from the pearl necklace in the centre of my forehead, to resemble the mirror girl’s diadem.

Perfect.

In the shadow world of my memories, the pale ghosts of waking life, this is the point at which I sprung to my feet, running downstairs to show gran, causing her to drop the plate and cry out in shock, and perhaps fear.

But not now. The dream takes over, breaking away from the one-way path of the past.

I’m still sitting before the mirror, about to run downstairs to gran, when a faraway voice whispers my name. My reflection in the mirror is no longer my own.

The white-haired girl is crying, clutching her bloodied breast. I can hear the crashing waves; I can smell the salt.

She reaches out to me, touching the silver glass as I do. As our fingertips meet, I fall forward.

An unbearable pain rips through my heart.

I look down, see the tips of my snowy alabaster hair drenched in blood. The hilt of a sword is buried in my ribs. Redness seeps into my gown, trickling over the tiny seed pearls, dripping down onto the sand below.

I look up.

Felix stands before me.

His dark hair is longer, almost to his shoulders. His skin is white as death. His hazel eyes are rimmed with onyx, and he’s wearing strange black armor. His face twists in pain, as if it was he who had a sword buried in his chest.

A fresh burst of pain explodes beneath my breast; something hits me. I stumble backwards on my feet, look down, and the sword hilt is gone, replaced with a crimson-feathered shaft. An arrow, shot clean through my heart.

Blood soaks into fine golden fabric, under the cover of a dark green traveling cloak.

I look up and I see the ramparts of a castle frosted with snowfall. Felix stands before me, the same wounded expression marring his handsome face. His hair is shorter now, neat and evenly cut just below his ears. His brilliant emerald green mantle embroidered with twining red roses is stained with blood. He reaches out to me, and I once again feel the pain stab into my chest.

I cry out, looking down once more, and I see the silver handle of a rusty pair of scissors stuck in my chest. Bright red blood spurts from the wound, soaking into the creamy ivory linen wrapped around my torso. I look up into Felix’s eyes. They are filled with tears. Behind him, discarded paint and canvases lie in a jumble. His hair is tied back behind his head; his tortured face is the very picture of agony. His dark grey waistcoat is patterned with tiny roses, standing out in bright contrast to his dark pinstripe pants and overcoat. His golden pocket watch glints in the failing light. I reach for it with a bloody fingertip, stumbling forward as my knees buckle beneath me.

I reach for the scissors embedded in my breast, which have now become a long shard of translucent glass. I wrap my fingers around it, cutting into the delicate skin of my hands, and tugging with all my might. A torrent of vermillion blood gushes out, writhing and coiling as it flows into twining thorny roses. A whole thicket springs from my chest, pinning me down, dragging me under the deep dark earth. 

Felix stands over my graveside, dressed now in dark skinny jeans, a v-neck sweater, his hair pushed back. I reach my arms up to him through the roses, and he falls forward into my embrace.

Through the darkness, we fall together.